The purpose of this research is to examine contributors to systematic differences in siblings from different families in the degree to which their relationships with each other are adaptively or maladaptively focuses. Some brothers and sisters fight frequently and chronically while others get along and take care of each other. It would be important to learn some of the reasons why this is so. Siblings with normal and depressed mothers are compared. If a mother is depressed and less able to care for her children some of the responsibility for caregiving and mediation of conflicts may fall to the older sibling. This would have implications for the psycho-social development of both the older and the younger sibling. Siblings are observed in interaction alone with each other, individually with the mother and together with the mother. The young child is between the ages of two and three and the older child is between the ages of five and seven. Coding systems are currently being developed in which episodes of caregiving and conflict are identified and analyzed in relation to maternal psychopathology.